The artists of the Escher String Quartet tuned between every piece and every movement of their cruelly compelling recital at Tulane University's Dixon Hall -- not the nervous double-checking of typical string players, but extended, minutes-long sessions conducted with razor-stropping deliberateness.

And the performances -- of works by Beethoven, Schubert and Shostakovich -- were just as remarkable, executed with the precision of a surgical operation, the athleticism of a choreographed knife fight from an action film.

Monday's program, sponsored by the New Orleans Friends of Music, may have reached back to Biedermeier, Vienna and Moscow under Stalinist terror, but it also offered a tantalizing glimpse of the music's future as artists from the iPod generation -- cellist Andrew Janns, violist Pierre Lapointe, and violinists Wu Jie and Adam Barnett-Hart -- dissected some of the darkest works in the quartet repertoire.

From the opening notes of Beethoven's "Serioso" quartet, it was clear that the group's tonal precision and unanimous phrasing was hardly an emotional straitjacket. The trust, fostered by so much careful preparation, seemed to encourage playing of savage intensity, full of a throbbing bass figures, sudden pauses, and powerful down-bowed unison lines.

Such muscular playing served to highlight quieter episodes: a spookily macabre duet between first violin and viola, the swaying dance melodies of the Larghetto.

They brought a similar approach to Schubert's "String Quartet in G major, D. 887," the composer's longest work in the genre -- and one of his most emotionally fraught.

As compelling as their performance was, I sometimes wondered if Schubert's grim insights might be better highlighted by a bit of weeping cafe-style vibrato, some hymnal warmth, some tarnish of worldly regret on the polished high-tech surface of their playing.

Still, it was hard to resist the pitiless idealism of these young revolutionaries -- especially in Shostakovich's "String Quartet No. 7," a composition from 1960 that presages the doomed, dark, private qualities of the Soviet composer's late work. This sparely textured work let one hear the individual strengths of the Escher's players, and in its mad closing fugue let them demonstrate their driving rhythmic sense.

Thousands of concert-goers cheered the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra when the resurgent, player-owned group lifted the roof of the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts this past week. But locals have more to cheer than the performing skills of this aggregation. Without its 67 musicians, the entire community would be diminished -- no orchestra for the opera, fewer teachers for university music programs, fewer volunteers for the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra and a lot less chamber music from moonlighting LPO players.

One of the best local chamber groups is Musaica, founded in 2007 by LPO players and faculty from Loyola University. This week Musaica will present a pair of free concerts: Wednesday, 7 p.m., at Munholland Methodist Church, 1201 Metairie Road; and Thursday, 7:30 p.m., at the St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church, at the corner of State Street. The program includes Schubert's "Shepherd on the Rock," Mozart's "Kegelsatt" Trio, a woodwind quartet by Jean Francaix, and Brahms' "String Quintet in G, op. 111."

"There's no special theme to this program, but it's a good representation of the things we like to do," LPO violist and Musaica founder Bruce Owen said. "From the start our goal was to play great music you don't hear a lot because the combination of instruments are uncommon."

The program brings together more than a dozen performers, including the rising star soprano Anne Marie Frohnmeyer.

For orchestral players the scale of these chamber works is refreshingly different, but the biggest change is working without a conductor.

"With chamber music, we're making all the decisions about tempo, dynamics and phrasing -- artistic choices that an orchestra generally leaves to conductors," Owen said. "That means we have to rehearse more, study the full score -- not just individual parts -- and listen to as many recordings of a piece we can find."